Spices n Secrets

I have been reading a book nowadays, called Winning in Testing Times, edited by Namita Bhandare.

It is basically a compilation of speeches that were delivered at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in 2010.

 

From Manmohan Singh, Gordon Brown, Nandan Nilekani to Wasim Akram, Dr Ravi Gopal Verma, the Summit was an excellent gathering of people from almost all professions.

Each of the speeches and the question-answer sessions have been included in this book. And all are so inspiring.

I finished the first speech by Dalai Lama and he had an interesting thing to say about parenting. And, I felt it is worth sharing.

1. Everyone is influenced by their mother. So, for a child (who later becomes a person) to become good natured and compassion, the mother has to be very kind and loving. In the words of Dalai Lama," At a very young age we survive on our mother's affection. At that stage the maximum affection we receive is from our mothers. That experience is absorbed by every particle of our body … Those who receive the most affection from their mother at an early age are safer and feel more secure. Those who grow up lacking a mother's affection or in abusive conditions, always remain insecure no matter how smart they may turn out to be."
   
2. The next remarkable point Dalai Lama made was in the context of religion and state development. But I found it to be application to parenting as well. He says that, "Without human action, Buddha's blessings are not very effective, are they?" He means that there are scores of scriptures and classes held on Buddha and his teachings but if people and state do not sit down to implement it, change will not take place. This got me thinking that no matter how many books on parenting and child care we read and no matter how many educational and learning toys we gift our kids, if parents/guardians do not deliberately sit down to talk, play and spent time with kids, never will they be able to change their parenting style for good. A lot of our efforts to raise to a child is dependent on television, mobiles, tablets and computers because with a click of a button songs can be played, alphabets are taught, and dances can be shown. We never really think about raising a child technology free and ourselves dancing, singing or teaching numbers and alphabets. Coming to Dalai Lama's point, human action is required to implement the things that are taught in parenting books. But, sadly we all prefer to pick and choose what suits our lifestyle and interest.